From home to classroom and beyond

Sunday

May 26, 2013 at 4:00 AM

Mary GarrisonColumnist

This week, mothers and education are on my mind. There is no more important job in the world than being a good mother or a Mr. Mom. Having parents with good sense makes a big difference in a person's life.Parents pass along a lot in nonverbal ways: their values, their interactions with others, work ethic, problem-solving skills and good manners.Grandmothers enjoy the fun part without the responsibility. Most grandparents, myself included, ramble on about their grandchildren. My 2-year old granddaughter spent some time sitting with me in the living room last week. She is learning to talk. (Need I say I find this most charming?) Sometimes I am clueless with her toddler-speak. That leads to frustration on her part.There are some words I do know. Her blanket has a name: Mau-Mau. And if she wants Mau-Mau, and I cannot find it, that is as disastrous as the sinking of the Titanic. Her pacifier also has a name: Gigi. We are not sure how she arrived at these unique nomenclatures, but they are important to her.Her attempts to say my name have evolved this year. For a while, she called me Mickey, which the entire family found hilarious. I guess I remind her of Mickey Mouse. That's fine with me. Granddaddy sometimes comes out as Grand-nanny. That draws some chuckles, too.I could keep going with this, but the editors would soon ask me to stick to the subject. The point is this: When I spend time with my little people, it makes me think about the children in our community. What about the ones who do not have doting grandparents and attentive parents?Folks, I am worried. I am just your average grandmother, but I care about my community and am concerned with what I am reading because of the impact on families and our public schools. Here's a highlight of some timely articles, some by Chris Kardish with The Associated Press. This column may seem like a Buzz Lightyear toy, flitting around from subject to subject, but stick with me:Article 1: People are protesting and being arrested in Raleigh (including professors and religious leaders). In my 37 years of living here, I do not remember anything like this. They are concerned about Medicaid, unemployment benefits, the earned income tax credit, voting rights, public education and pre-K eligibility for at-risk children.Article 2: This article discusses proposed education bills in Raleigh. They seek to limit eligibility for the state's pre-kindergarten program, lift restrictions on class size for grades K-3, cut 4,000 teacher assistants, give tax credits to parents of private-school students, and eliminate teacher tenure and a teacher's right to a hearing if terminated.The same article points out that nationally, North Carolina's public schools have fallen from 24th in teacher pay to 48th, and also now rank 48th in per-student spending. This does not even begin to touch our local problems and county per-pupil expenditure rankings that keep heading toward the bottom.Enter article 3 by Times-News columnist Bruce Benson, who touched on all these issues in his May 18 piece in a, shall we say, very frank manner.The high school graduation rate is at an all-time high at 80.4 percent. Tax reform discussions and proposed legislation would reduce state revenue by $1 billion. If we've been behind before, where is this going to put us?Article 4: We heard shocking news from the Children and Family Resource Center and the Community Foundation last week: Twenty-five percent of the county's children live in poverty, more than half of the county's public school students get free or reduced-price lunches, and 231 county students are homeless. The United Agenda for Children intends to provide these children with five promises: caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, effective education and opportunities to serve. How will we possibly accomplish this when North Carolina opted out of Medicaid and our state school system is being dismantled?Article 5: An article on how Americans really agree on more than we realize was interesting. We are so bogged down in parties fighting each other that we forget what we have in common. Most of us are moderate, middle-of-the-road people who do not like either extreme. We just need to figure out how to get the moderate-minded back in the driver's seat.When one reads statistics like these, one feels helpless. One thing you can do is ask your representatives in Raleigh to support our children and our schools: Rep. Chris Whitmire, Rep Chuck McGrady and Sen. Tom Apodaca. Contact them at Chris.Whitmire@ncleg.net, Chuck.McGrady@ncleg.net and Tom.Apodaca@ncleg.net, and you can find their phone numbers at www.ncleg.net. Ask them to not support the proposed Senate budget because it is detrimental to public education. It freezes teacher pay, stops pay increases for teachers with advanced degrees, cuts 4,000 teacher assistants, makes discretionary cuts permanent, lifts class-size restrictions in grades K-3, and ends teacher tenure and their right to an appeal.Please be polite when you communicate and show your passion for your community and your beliefs in a respectful way. Ask them to spend a few hours in some classrooms and talk with educators. Finally, refer them to article 6, which basically says we have been living through difficult times and deep cuts but our situation has improved, according to the state controller. It is time to stop going to such extremes and use caution about tax reform and the fate of future revenues in our state. It impacts children, families and classrooms.Mary Garrison lives in Flat Rock. Reach her at mmrgarrison@gmail.com.